Jeremy laughed. “You haven’t told me yet. So the count’s still four or five.” He was grinning, but Gil’s reaction put him more on edge than he expected.

Gil grinned. “Yeah. So how do I understand all these things?” He put the grin away. “It’s a curse.” Jeremy frowned, thinking it over. Gil waited. He had all the time in the world.

“Understanding’s a curse?” Jeremy drained his beer bottle, waved at Rhonda, held up two fingers. “I don’t get it. Seems like it’s the key to… everything.”

“The curse isn’t understanding. It’s how I got the understanding. Did you ever think I’m older than I look?” Gil saw Rhonda round the bar and finished his beer.

“Huh. Never thought of it that way. I just thought you were crazy-smart or something. You don’t look any older than me. How old are you, then?”

Rhonda brought their refills over. “You need anything else? Plate of nachos?” Gil and Jeremy were her two favorite customers: even drunk they never tried anything funny, and they always left a decent tip or made it up next time. They didn’t get huffy if she was busy, which meant she tried to make sure they never ran dry.

“Sounds good,” said Gil. “Put it on my tab.”

She smiled. “I’ll have it right out,” and walked away. She knew how they liked their nachos: cheese, tomatoes, and sliced jalapeños.

Gil watched Rhonda walk back to the bar, admiring her wide hips and sturdy backside before turning to Jeremy. “Eighty-four hundred and thirty-six.”

“It’s true. Have I ever lied to you? About anything?” Jeremy shook his head. “So go with it for now. No harm, right?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy gulped half his beer. “Okay. So how did it happen?”

“I loved a goddess’s daughter. Now the goddess in question claimed I kidnapped and raped her, but that’s a damn lie. I might have seduced her, but it didn’t take much. And I married her before we made love.”

“This just gets better and better. Which one?”

“Their names are forgotten, except by me, and I’m not going to speak them. Forgotten gods are —” he waved his hands a moment, then downed most of his own beer — “comatose. Something like that. I might wake ‘em up if I speak their names. But the ancient Greeks knew my story. They turned it into Hades and Persephone. Assholes.”

Jeremy laughed. “So you’re Death Himself?”

“Oh, hell no. I’m just a guy who fell in love with the wrong girl. We married in her grandfather’s temple, boarded a barge down the Tigris to start our life somewhere safe, and her mom caught up to us anyway.”

“And?”

“She gave me a choice: she would either kill me on the spot, or give me the gift of immortality in exchange for renouncing the marriage.”

“Evil bitch of a goddess.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. P— my bride said I would be better off dead than to take that bargain, but I was young and dazzled by the prospect of living forever.” Gil drained the rest of his beer. “She was right.”

“What do you mean?”

Rhonda brought the nachos with two more bottles; Gil tapped his chest. She smiled, nodded, and left. Those guys liked to solve the world’s problems while tying one on.

“Just because I can’t be killed doesn’t mean I don’t feel pain,” said Gil. “I’ve been shot with arrows and bullets, stabbed with just about every weapon you can name, hung, and beheaded.” He took a long drink. “That fucking hurt, and it kept hurting because I can’t die.”

“What? How did you —”

“Science is awesome. It at least let me understand what’s going on. Cell repair: for you and everyone else, that’s how you heal. But sooner or later, it stops working and you get old. Then you die. But for me, it’s in overdrive. Do you have any idea how much it hurts, trying to squirm your severed head back to the rest of you so the whole can heal?” He gulped down his beer and waved at Rhonda.

“Yeah,” said Jeremy. “This is — this is a night for stronger measures.” Rhonda grimaced, but nodded and left. “Jeez. That’s harsh.”

“You have no idea.”

“Yeah. But why don’t you bring her back?”

“Who, Rhonda? She’ll be back.”

“No, the girl. The one you married. Can’t you wake her up without the bitchy mother-in-law?”

Gil cocked his head at his latest friend, feeling the room spin around them. “Wouldn’t work. She musta moved on by now.”

“Why? If she’s been asleep all this time, why couldn’t you two patch things up? Shit. Listen to me. I don’t even have a girlfriend, and I’m advising some immortal about his love life?”

Rhonda brought the bottle and two glasses, filling each before leaving. “You want me to hold your car keys?” she asked. “The taxis will be here when you’re ready.” The boys fished their keys out of their pockets. “Good. Just let me know.”

• • •

Later that night, Gil lit a candle on his kitchen floor, kneeling before it. “Come to me, my love, my wife,” he said, in a language long forgotten by the rest of mankind, “my… my Pyanya. Awaken, Pyanya, my quiet one, from your long slumber, and join your husband in this strange time.”

I really liked it! To be honest, I think it's fine as it is - not every flash demands "more" (and of course once it strays beyond 1000 words it's no longer a flash, it's a serial) and sometimes just leaving the story to the imagination renders the original work more powerful.

That was good fun - loved the way the conversation slipped back and forth between the supernatural conversation and the everyday, ordering of more drinks. Also liked the ending, just enough of a hint about what happen next.

Lee-Ann, like I said in an earlier comment, Rhonda was originally part of the background and insisted on getting more attention. I had a character do that in White Pickups (novel, 1.5th draft serialized, look for the link at top-right) too.

Icy, thanks for that. I do like short stories where you can imagine for yourself what happens next too.

Aweeadventure, thanks — that's the feel I wanted to capture, the conversation about the fantastic juxtaposed with everyday drinking (and snacking). Good to know I got it right!

I loved this, the dialogue was fun, the idea of an immortal travelling through changing times really appeals. I liked the ending too, it leaves you wanting more, but more might just be too much. Now I am left with my imagination to visualise what happened next.

Ganymeder, I'm fooling with a couple ideas along those lines. Here's hoping the mother-in-law doesn't wake up too!

Thanks, Aidan. The rhythm isn't one I ever tried before, it just came out — and felt right for this story. But as for convincing, if surviving getting beheaded doesn't convince you… maybe I should have left in the part how he had to dig himself out of a grave?

Comments are welcome, and they don't have to be complimentary. I delete spam on sight, but that's pretty much it for moderation. Long off-topic rants or unconstructive flamage are also candidates for deletion but I haven’t seen any of that so far.

I have comment moderation on for posts over a week old, but that’s so I’ll see them.

About Me

I've been doing technical writing since 1982. In that time, I got married, raised two kids, and am now raising a grandkid. The latter, family, is what defines me. If my career were my life, many things would be different.

I've always wanted to write stories, but too often found myself doing other things. At some point in the last few years, I got serious about it. In that time, I've written two novels, started a third, and wrote numerous short stories and flash fiction pieces. Many of them can be found on my blog, and I'm in the final few laps of publishing one of my novels, White Pickups.

I'm not all that concerned about "getting published" as eBook outlets now make it possible to bypass the entire query/agent/publisher gauntlet. Yes, doing it yourself is a lot of work — but honestly, the traditional route requires much the same amount (and kinds) of work but without any guarantee of seeing your work on the shelves, actual or virtual. That's not to say I would turn down a traditional book deal if one were offered, but I'm not going to go begging either. In either case, I don't expect to quit my dayjob. It's more important to me that people read and enjoy my stories than having some commercial success.